For many years agricultural balers have been used to consolidate and package crop material to facilitate the storage and handling of the crop material for later use. Usually, a mower-conditioner cuts and conditions the crop material for windrow drying in the sun. When the cut crop material is properly dried, a baler, for example a round baler, travels along the windrows to pick up the crop material and form it into cylindrically-shaped round bales.
More specifically, the cut crop material is gathered at the front of the baler from along the ground, onto a pickup assembly, and into a crop feeding channel where the material can be further cut before being introduced into a bale-forming chamber. Traditionally, the crop feeding channel is more narrow than the surrounding areas of the harvester, and clogging or plugging of the crop feeding channel is a common problem, especially if the harvester is being operated at higher speeds and thus passing greater amounts of crop material through the crop feeding channel at a given time. Once a clog occurs, the harvester must be stopped for the crop feeding channel to be cleared, reducing harvesting efficiency.
One method to prevent clogging is to design a harevster with a limited amount of movement of the bottom floor of the crop feeding channel. The bottom floor physically supports the crop material as it passes through the crop feeding channel and is cut by a rotor and knives before being moved to the bale forming chamber. By allowing the bottom floor to move, it can temporarily increase the volume of crop material that can be passed through the crop feeding channel, possibly preventing the formation of a clog. Once such example is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/469,824, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, which provides a crop collection system with a limited movement of a bottom floor.
The instant application provides a system that allows an operator to control and operate the bottom floor assembly by an operator interface. The system also provides warning information to the operator if the drop floor system is active, allowing the operator to slow down harvesting or to take other measures that would prevent the formation of a clog.